Increasing knowledge and uptake of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in women: a community-engaged approach to inform a PrEP intervention for HIV-vulnerable women in Chicago

Sadia Haider, The University of Chicago

Project abstract

There is an urgent need for effective HIV prevention tools for African American (AA) women, a population disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS health disparities. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2012 for use by HIV-negative persons, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a promising biomedical prevention strategy that has the potential to reduce HIV incidence among key HIV-vulnerable populations.

Despite PrEP’s demonstrated effectiveness in women, awareness and utilization is particularly low among AA women compared to other highly vulnerable populations (e.g., men who have sex with men). Thus, strategically engaging AA, HIV-vulnerable women in the development of tailored PrEP prevention strategies to optimize PrEP as a real world strategy is of great importance and represents a critical gap in current implementation strategies.

The proposed project will continue to strengthen the community-academic partnership established during the SFP planning period between University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, University of Chicago School of Medicine, the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago to engage key stakeholders to design a community-informed, theory-based intervention to increase PrEP awareness and uptake among HIV-vulnerable women in Chicago. The long- term goal of this project is to provide preliminary evidence to design a patient-informed and patient-centered intervention to advance the scientific study of PrEP awareness and uptake among AA, HIV-vulnerable women. The study team will be well poised to submit a subsequent grant to the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.